11 HuJI men held in murder plot

The Bangalore Police on Thursday arrested Akram alias Yusuf, an associate of the late Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) terrorist Shahid Bilal, and 10 others on charges of conspiring to murder journalists, politicians and some others for allegedly denigrating Islam.

The Bangalore team carried out the early morning arrests with the help of its Hyderabad counterparts.

Of the 10, apart from Yusuf, six are from Hubli-Dharwad district. Among the arrested are a scientist of the Defence Research and Development Organisation and a journalist.

While Bilal was gunned down by Pakistan’s ISI in Karachi on August 30, 2007, Akram, originally from Hyderabad, was working in Saudi Arabia.

Top government sources said the arrested persons had no known links with the Indian Mujahideen but Akram, 28, had come on the radar of Indian security agencies as he was giving directions from West Asian country to the Indian underworld to target all those considered anti-Muslim.